‘Fear The Brow’ athlete Anthony Davis trademarks unibrow

Eric Pfeiffer
·Reporter

Kentucky basketball star Anthony Davis is widely expected to be the number one selection in this Thursday's NBA draft. But he's already locked down one unique distinction: filing a trademark over his unibrow.

"I don't want anyone to try to grow a unibrow because of me and then try to make money off of it," Davis told CNBC. "Me and my family decided to trademark it because it's very unique."

In addition to registering the likeness of his eyebrow hair, Davis has trademarked the phrases "Fear the Brow" and "Raise The Brow."

Basketball figures have a history of using trademark law to cash in on popular sports phrases. In 1988, then-Los Angeles Lakers coach Pat Riley trademarked the phrases "3-peat" and "three-peat," which reference a team winning three consecutive championships.

Davis says he refuses to trim the unibrow because, "everyone's talking about it," though he admits he has been pressured to groom it to two brows. And though Davis recently signed on with the Wasserman Media Group, he says fans shouldn't expect any razor endorsements in the near future.

"I might have a commercial where I'm acting like I'm shaving it and then I'll throw the razor down," he said.

CNBC adds that while Davis was a freshman during Kentucky's National Championship run last season, the school kept a close eye on outside businesses trying to cash in on his appearance.

"We sent a half a dozen cease-and-desist letters," Jason Schlafer, Kentucky's associate athletic director for marketing, told CNBC. "But towards the end of the season, people were getting really creative."